


Friends in the North

by devilinthedetails



Series: Hot Blood [1]
Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Bazhir, Bullying, Canon-Typical Racism, Cultural clash, Friendship, Gen, Hazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:08:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25514047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: With his friends in the north, Zahir can survive the hazing of the pages' wing.
Series: Hot Blood [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1848427
Kudos: 7





	Friends in the North

Friends in the North

Zahir knew it was too much to hope for that nobody would see the purple bruise swelling around his left eye or the red scab crusting on his lip but he had hoped that at least nobody would comment on his battered appearance. The bruise and the scab were humiliating vestiges of his encounter with a pack of fourth-year pages in the library the previous night. 

The fourth-years always moved in packs the better to terrorize unfortunate first-years, and Zahir was hazed worse than any other first-year because his olive skin and dark eyes marked him as a Bazhir from the Southern Desert. Last night in the library, the fourth-years had sat at their table and forced him to fetch an array of dusty, heavy books and scrolls for them. All the books and scrolls had long, befuddling title. When Zahir had inevitably confused the titles, the fourth-years had bloodied his lip and purpled his eye. 

Zahir was trying to suppress this shameful memory of defeat at the fists of northerners as he spent the evening studying with Joren, Vinson, and Garvey in Joren’s currently crowded room. Despite his thick lip, Zahir had found a way to scowl as he attempted to solve a complicated mathematics equation and didn’t appreciate when Joren glanced up from the reading assignment he’d been flipping through idly for the better part of an hour to ask, “What happened last night, Zahir? How’d you get that bruise and scab?” 

Zahir’s scowl deepened. How could he answer such a question that poked at unhealed wounds? How could he admit to being beaten by a pack of fourth-years in the library? How could he explain how his muscles had ached with the need to hit back when they’d bruised his eye and split his lip? How could he describe how horrible it had been to feel himself go numb and distant inside when he had most longed to punch back at the northerners who had always oppressed him and his people? How could he say he’d tasted the bitterness of realizing that if he did fight back it would only get him in more trouble along with the iron of hot blood searing into his tongue? 

How could he express that the worst feeling hadn’t been any of that? How could he possibly bring his mouth to shape the words that had been hurled like poison darts at him last night The slurs that sought to transform his honorable heritage into a disgrace. The words that still blazed like wildfire in his mind whenever he shut his eyes. Sand scut. Savage. Primitive. 

Every word a twisting knife in his chest because he never would have heard such terms thrown at him if his people had never been conquered by the northerners—if their proud prides had never been brought low by that Tortallan tyrant King Jasson the northerners still insisted on calling a hero in history classes where Zahir had to listen with flaming ears to the stinging tales of his people’s defeat recounted as glorious victories. 

No, Joren, Vinson, and Garvey were all northerner by blood and by birth. They could never understand the shame and the pride—the dueling honor and disgrace—of being a Bazhir, so instead Zahir offered the mumble of the beaten page who wouldn’t defy the tradition of silently accepting all hazing that they would expect and understand, “I fell down.” 

The words were ashes coating Zahir’s tongue. What a weak excuse that was. He was the most graceful of the first-year pages. He never would’ve fallen down without being pushed. He wasn’t bumbling like Garvey or Vinson. 

“You’re clumsy when we’re not around, aren’t you?” Joren’s tone was indolent, and there was an expression in his icy blue eyes Zahir couldn’t read. Northerners were a constant source of bewilderment to him. “Perhaps we should stick by you all the time so you don’t fall.” 

Zahir thought he knew what Joren was saying. He was offering for himself as well as Garvey and Vinson—Joren was always confident that he could speak for Garvey and Vinson, and neither of those two ever bothered to prove him wrong in that assurance—to stay by Zahir’s side because when he was with Zahir, the fourth-years wouldn’t target him. They wouldn’t dare to harass Joren, son of a powerful northern noble, the way they hazed Zahir, sand scut from the Southern Desert. 

“Maybe you should.” Zahir nodded, wondering if the shame burning within him as he did so would brand him as a cringing coward for life. 

“We will then,” Joren declared as if it were that simple and straightforward. To him, in his position of privilege, it probably was. 

Zahir tried to make himself believe that it was indeed that simple and straightforward. That he would survive this hazing by Joren, Garvey, and Vison gathering ranks around him. That he had found a loyal group of friends to have his back amidst the ruthlessness of the pages’ wing. That he had friends in the north. Yet, a deeper part of him, knew that he was lying to himself. There’d never be anyone he could truly depend on in the chaos and cruelty of page training, and there were no northerners who wouldn’t secretly hate him and his hot Bazhir blood. 

It was a dangerous lie to believe otherwise, but Zahir was too young—too weak and wobbly as a yearling—to face the reality that he was alone so far from his home and his tribe, so he allowed himself to pretend that the friends he made in the north could become like his tribe and the pages’ wing like his home.


End file.
